Innovation/ Technology

In a recent Gartner survey, half of consumers projected to scale back or abandon social media interactions due to platform quality deterioration. According to Gartner, an investigation encompassing 263 consumers revealed that 53% perceived a decline in social media standards over the past five years. Factors contributing to this downturn were cited as the proliferation of misinformation, toxic user environments, and the prevalence of bots. With concern mounting over the integration of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) into social media, over 70% of respondents expressed apprehension, fearing a detrimental impact on user experience. Senior Principal Researcher at Gartner’s marketing practice, Emily Weiss, highlighted the paradoxical landscape where social media remains a...

Nissan Motor said on Sunday it would sell China-developed electric vehicles (EVs) globally as it struck a deal with the country's top university to leverage local resources to accelerate research and development on electrification. The Japanese automaker is considering exporting the line-up of existing internal combustion engine vehicles and upcoming pure electric and plug-in hybrid cars manufactured and developed in China to overseas markets, Masashi Matsuyama, vice president of Nissan Motor and president of Nissan China, told reporters in Beijing. Nissan is considering aiming at the same markets as Chinese rivals such as BYD, he said. The company is joining foreign brands including Tesla, BMW and Ford that are expanding their exports of China-made cars to exploit the countr...

Tesla Inc posted a video showing improvements it’s made to its humanoid robot prototype, capping off the clip with two of the machines dancing to electronic music beneath flashing lights. Dubbed the Optimus bot, the human-mimicking machine is part of Tesla’s venture into developing artificial intelligence and utilises a trained neural network to perform basic tasks. In the latest demonstration, Tesla says it’s reduced the weight of Optimus by 10kg and shows the bot delicately picking up and handling an egg, with what it describes as “tactile sensing on all fingers.” In September, Optimus was shown in a separate video sorting building blocks by colour. Optimus remains a concept in development and will have to shake off the underwhelming debut it made a year ago, when Tesla ...

“The thing I worry about most is humans losing capability” over the machines, said Rene Haas (picture), Chief Executive Officer of Arm Holdings Plc, when asked what keeps him up at night when he thinks about artificial intelligence. “You need some override, some backdoor, some way that the system can be shut down.” Haas, who was speaking to Bloomberg in a wide-ranging interview from the company’s Cambridge, UK, base knows a thing or two about machines. By his estimate, 70% of the world’s population touches Arm-designed products in some way. It’s a reminder of the company’s rare status as a UK-born global tech titan — even if it is now majority owned by Masayoshi Son’s Softbank Group Corp. in Japan, and listed in New York. As Haas considers the potential downsides to artificial i...

Government departments, agencies, and private entities handling users’ personal data must invest in the latest cybersecurity systems to prevent information leakage. Dr. Mohd Izuan Hafez Ninggal, Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology senior lecturer, said that while implementing advanced cybersecurity measures may require substantial funding, it is important to enhance the organisation’s IT security level. “The necessary tools and solutions for cybersecurity already exist in the market,” he told Bernama, while emphasising the importance of allocating funds to utilise these resources, suggesting that financial considerations for upgrading the IT security level of government agencies could be included in future budget presentations. ...

Minister of Communications and Digital Fahmi Fadzil said he will hold a meeting with platform provider Meta next week regarding the issue of scammers taking over users’ WhatsApp accounts. Describing this as a worrying trend, Fahmi said he has personally received complaints from several individuals about their WhatsApp accounts being 'stolen' by irresponsible parties. Following these complaints, CyberSecurity Malaysia issued a warning about the danger of criminals taking over WhatsApp accounts, he told reporters after the closing ceremony of the National Anti-Scam Roadshow 2023 in Putrajaya, which was officiated by Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Fadillah Yusof, here on Thursday. "A meeting will be held with Meta, which handles WhatsApp, to understand whether the security asp...